Girl in a green blouse

Identification

Published titles

English: Girl in a green blouse.
French: Le corsage vert / Femme au corsage vert.

Date

1917 (museum date). Ceroni and Patani dated the canvas 1916; Lanthemann dated it 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

81.3 × 46 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., inv. 1963.10.45. Chester Dale Bequest, 1963.

Catalogue numbers

Legal note on MR: This investigation has not had access to MR’s catalogue raisonné; all research here is based on open sources, publications and exhibitions. By no means has that catalogue been copied at any point. Modigliani Project and Modigliani Initiative are marked YES when the work is published or otherwise recorded by those projects, even if no catalogue number is assigned; otherwise the field is marked ?.

Provenance

1. Georges Chéron Collection, Paris? (Patani; this investigation marks this as unproven).
2. Mme Carrière Collection, Paris.
3. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, acquired 19 March 1921, inv. 22585.
4. Mme Bosch Collection, Paris?, acquired 8 February 1922, 3,000 FF.
5. Marcel Norero Collection, Paris.
6. Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 14 February 1927, as Le Corsage Vert.
7. Bignou, Paris; sold to Chester Dale, 5 April 1927.
8. Chester Dale Collection, New York.
9. National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. 1963.10.45, Chester Dale Bequest, 1963.

The sequence follows the published museum, sale, and catalogue record in this investigation. Gaps and uncertain transfers are marked as such.

Selected bibliography

Book-length publications are marked with a footnote giving a full citation. Exhibition catalogues appear in both this list and the exhibition list when this investigation recorded them in both places. Where this investigation listed a long run of secondary mentions, only the principal catalogues and museum or sale references are retained here.

• Maud Dale, Modigliani, New York, Knopf, 1929, no. 37, as Le corsage vert.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 22.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 137, as Le corsage vert, dated 1917.²
• National Gallery of Art summary catalogues, 1965, 1968, 1975, 1985.
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 407, dated 1919.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 114, dated 1916.⁴
• John Walker, National Gallery of Art, Washington, rev. ed., New York, 1984, p. 586, no. 899.
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 118, dated 1916.⁵
• Victoria Soto Caba, 2007.⁶

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1922, no. 22, as Femme au corsage vert.
• Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 1922.
• Glasgow, McLellan Gallery, 1927, no. 54.
• London, Reid & Lefevre, 1929.
• New York, Demotte, 1931, no. 15.
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Chester Dale Collection, 1943–51.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, Chester Dale Bequest, 1965.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, Modigliani: An Anniversary Exhibition, 1983–84.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 191, 80.5 × 45 cm, dated 1917, with reference to the Norero sale of 1927 and a Bignou provenance.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas.

This investigation records a complete set of four fingerprints of the right hand, stamped while the paint was wet: one ring finger at top centre and three fingers plus the same ring finger at bottom centre.

The National Gallery of Art confirms Girl in a Green Blouse, 1917, oil on canvas, 81.3 × 46 cm, inv. 1963.10.45, Chester Dale Collection. The museum’s published provenance begins with Marcel Norero; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 14 February 1927, no. 80, as Le Corsage Vert; Étienne Bignou; sold 5 April 1927 to Chester Dale; bequest 1963. Steps before Norero in this file remain unconfirmed against that record.

The original documentation assembled for this investigation marked several fields as still being checked. The facts above are those already published; where sources disagree, both readings are given.